The Man In The Stands JUST as The Man had lost patience with our current team the ratbags went and scored five against pseudo-s**m Wolves. With the help of Reading's Leroy Lita we went goal crazy.

The Man In The Stands

JUST as The Man had lost patience with our current team the ratbags went and scored five against pseudo-s**m Wolves.

With the help of Reading's Leroy Lita we went goal crazy. Goal mad. We even scored in the first half.

It was just what the doctor ordered; a timely reminder that football can actually be fun sometimes.

Roeder, as is the way with managers of all struggling teams, delighted in telling us the rout had been long overdue. The Man never tires of hearing managers claim after a rampant victory: “Well, to be fair, it has been coming…someone was always going to get a hiding…it could have been 12.”

It is a curious fact that we have saved our best two performances this season for Birmingham and Wolves, who before today's fixtures were the division's top two sides. There's almost something enchanting about supporting a club that turns on the style for the bigger teams, but like a French poodle, sneers at dirtying its paws with lesser morsels.

Maybe Roeder just needs to concoct a dummy league table before each game and stick it on the wall in the dressing room? “So here we are lads - Doncaster - they are top of the league and really doing some damage this year.

Go out there and play them off the park!”

All seasoned Norwich fans will have approached today's game with Donny with a sense of minor trepidation. Like all clubs of our ilk we know exactly the sort of vile performance our lot can turn in after a big win.

In recent years I remember getting awfully excited about winning at Ipswich only to get turned over by relegation-bound Swindon at home just a few days later.

Fingers crossed we were able to avoid a similar fate today.

t 'DIRE ATMOSPHERE' REPORTED AT PORTMAN ROAD

THE Man knows this is no time to be particularly smug, as the atmosphere at Carrow Road is hardly at Spinal Tap levels these days.

But it did not escape my attention this week that our dear friends down the road have tried to launch a new campaign to get more singing at Portman Road.

Ips*** fan Daniel Gooch said that action was required to combat the “dire atmosphere” and “deleterious silence” which had “infected” the council-owned ground.

The Man has to commend Mr Gooch on his choice of the word “infected”; it is most appropriate given the bacteria which inhabits the Norwich Union-funded stadium.

The campaign will be called Section 6, named after an area of the North Stand which currently likes to clap.

Quite coincidently, section 6 of the Public Order Act - legislation which many football fans will have been quoted from the Boys in Blue over the years - relates to “Mental element: miscellaneous”.

Given some of the sights The Man has seen whilst walking from the station to Portman Road in past visits, I would again commend Mr Gooch on his use of terminology.

And by the way, roll on December 7th, we are due a win.

Big time. OTBC

t CULLEN'S CARROW ROAD EXIT IS TRAGIC

AS far as The Man understands, today will be Andy Cullen's last home “matchday experience” as a Norwich City employee.

Of all the grave news to have emitted from Carrow Road this season, revelations that Cullen was leaving disturbed me the most.

I have no insight into whether this was a move Cullen truly desired, or whether with looming cutbacks he had to go.

All I know is, to lose our best-performing member of non-football staff to a club that didn't even exist a few years ago is tragic. People like Cullen are irreplaceable, which is quite coincidental given the club says it can't afford to replace him.

The Man recalls a pre-season friendly he went to many years ago, when AC walked past and asked if my mate and I were happy with our seats.

We replied that actually, we'd rather be sitting at the other end of the ground.

Cullen promptly walked us the length of the ground and escorted us to our seats. A class act.

I've also seen him at fans' forums working the room to try and hawk a £3 magazine, something the vast majority of sales directors would consider far beyond themselves.

Sadly, we are going to be losing him just as the country falls into recession, when his creative marketing skills will be needed more than ever.

It's only a few years ago that we went to MK Dons and beat them on the way to the title.

The fact they can come in and poach our ticket guru just shows how far we have fallen.

While on the subject of Cullen - or should I say Cullum (I know; boo, hiss...he's a witch) - those who were hoping take over talks were quietly going on behind the scenes with the Richest Norwich Fan in The World Ever are set to be disappointed.

The whispers from both camps are that the stand off continues. The Man may have been thrown a curve ball here, but as of this week that appeared to be the state of play. Quite whether there is anyone else out there prepared to buy a football club £20m in debt at a time of economic turmoil remains to be seen…tick, tock.